This invention relates to a technique of manufacturing an optical connector for connecting optical fibers by bringing their longitudinal end faces into contact with each other and, in particular, to a fixing tool for fixing a fiber holding member to an optical fiber.
An optical fiber is very thin and easily bent. It is therefore difficult to incorporate the optical fiber into an optical connector. In view of the above, into the optical connector of the type, a fiber holding member is used in order to incorporate the optical fiber. Specifically, the fiber holding member is fixed to the optical fiber and then the fiber holding member is held by a housing of the optical connector.
In order to fix the fiber holding member to the optical fiber, the optical fiber is inserted through a hole formed in the fiber holding member and is protruded outward from the fiber holding member by a predetermined length. In this state, the fiber holding member is fixed to the optical fiber. Thereafter, the optical fiber and the fiber holding member are incorporated into the housing of the optical connector.
The optical connector is connected via an adapter having an aligning mechanism. By the use of a restoring force caused by buckling of the optical fiber, the longitudinal end face of the optical fiber is brought into contact with that of another optical fiber (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publications (JP-A) Nos. 2004-118031 and H8-313759).
However, because of a clearance (about 100 μm) between an inner peripheral surface of the hole of the fiber holding member and an outer peripheral surface of the optical fiber, it is difficult to control an angle of a protruding portion of the optical fiber which protrudes from the fiber holding member. This results in a problem that a buckling direction of the optical fiber is not stably determined. In case where the optical fibers are closely adjacent to each other, the optical fibers interfere with each other so that the performance is not stabilized and, in the worst case, the optical fibers are damaged.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the aligning mechanism of the adapter is required to have a strict dimensional accuracy. This prevents the optical connector from being provided at a low cost.